Mormonism, Islam and all other religions are internally inconsistent? Like Christianity is internally consistent?

God loves us SOOOO much that he’s going to torture you eternally unless you obey his orders?

How does the death of Jesus actually atone for our sins?

What about the 4 billion people who die outside of Christ, and/or who never heard? They are not in rebellion against God. They are searching for answers like any of us. But they were just not born where they could hear or believe.

God promises that the Jews will never lose their land or be disturbed again.

And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies… (2 Samuel 7:10-11)

And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies… (1 Chronicles 17:9-10)

God promises that David’s throne will be established forever.

“Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:16)

“I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.” (1 Chronicles 17:14)

“And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.” (1 Chronicles 22:10)

What about the founders of Islam or Hinduism or any other religions we find being practiced today?
SauerKraut537 on March 27, 2012 at 3:32 PM

This is historical ignorance. Islam is derived entirely from a claimed eyewitness account by ONE man who had NO corroboration, benefitted significantly, and had EVERY incentive for the lie. Mormonism is the same. Both religions are also internally inconsistent. I don’t know the story of the origins of Hinduism (and I assume neither do you) so neither of us is qualified there.

Your continued unwillingness to engage with a rock-solid argument proves you are either a troll or are suffering from the subjective bias you accuse everyone else of having.

Really? You want me to spell it out for you as if you can’t figure it out for yourself?

It’s called keeping/putting up appearances joe.

They put the appearance of objectivity, all while giving a subjective opinion on the evidence of Jesus and the bible. They lied, an un-Christian thing to do last I checked.

In their personal life stories they clearly state that they set out to disprove the historicity of Jesus and the bible, and yet they were clearly Christians all along while using their “objective” positions of power as a college professor and reporter to somehow show that they used to be “atheists” or non believers. I mean we all know far right Christians distaste for reporters and college professors, something that hasn’t changed much since Greenleafs time…

Greenleaf’s argument has to do with the fact that if the Gospels are fiction, it requires us to believe in a massive simultaneous conspiracy of otherwise good people, to promote a lie that none of them would benefit from, a conspiracy from which none of them deviated even at the cost of torture and death. It takes extraordinary faith

What about the founders of Islam or Hinduism or any other religions we find being practiced today? Don’t you see their exact same venture as a fraud and false? Didn’t they supposedly promote their own religious ventures with the same verve and fanaticism as those who started Christianity? Weren’t THEY willing to forward their religions on pain of torture or death? They had to overthrow the current religious institutions that dominated in their area right? They surely were persecuted like every new cult that pops up now and again…

You know, I live up the road from Mt Carmel Texas where David Koresh had his compound of kooks back in the 90′s. You obviously, I hope, looked at them as obviously wrong headed but his followers were willing to, and DID, die for him and his cause.

All it takes is charismatic person who can enthrall a group of followers to all manner of crazy things.

But get this… There are STILL Branch Davidians who still believe in David Koresh as the next incarnation of Jesus Christ.

What’s to say that in 2000+ years they don’t have as many followers as Christianity does today?

The joke is that they already WERE Christians joe. How dense are you bro? They’re particularly good deceivers for getting you to believe their lies.

SauerKraut537 on March 27, 2012 at 12:17 AM

Uh… so what does that have to do with their argument?

If the argument is sound, it doesn’t matter if it comes from a Christian, Jew, Scientiologist, or if you found it written on a piece of paper in a cracker jack box.

Greenleaf’s argument has to do with the fact that if the Gospels are fiction, it requires us to believe in a massive simultaneous conspiracy of otherwise good people, to promote a lie that none of them would benefit from, a conspiracy from which none of them deviated even at the cost of torture and death. It takes extraordinary faith. Someone like you who claims to have studied history and psychology knows that this theory is absurd. The Gospel writers, therefore, must be assumed honest and credible eyewitnesses.

I’ve given you the substance Cleo, that you aren’t satisfied with it isn’t because I haven’t given it to you but because you want to discount it as unsophisticated or not authoritative enough, any excuse you can come up with…

The issue is this, it’s not nearly as complicated as you make it out to be. With a bit of knowledge of human nature and human psychology it is easy to infer the inanity of religious belief and thought. It is easy to see how you overcomplicate the issue with excuse after excuse to continue to believe in what you WANT believe in when it comes to this god we can all imagine.

This is not a scientific issue where something real is being compared to something real like your example of Copernicus’ proof of the celestial movements. This is natural to supernatural. There IS no “proof” per se, there is only knowledge of the real world we live in and human nature as it is.

Ever since we learned of our pending mortality — the mosts unfortunate consequence of evolving a larger brain — we have done our best to mitigate its doleful message. Much of the greatest works in philosophy, religion, art, and music either exist to bewail our mortality or to argue that a spiritual continuity permits us to accept the physical decline, and eventual decay of our bodies. As the lyrics of Bach’s Jesu meine Freude insists: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.”

Stephen J Gould, Urchin in the storm

You WANT the stories to be true because it comforts you Cleo… You WANT to believe you get to go to heaven to be with your relatives already passed, and for those still left behind after you pass to come join you in heaven as well.

I get it. You’re afraid. I was too once.

]]>By: Cleombrotushttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/25/quotes-of-the-day-978/comment-page-8/#comment-5664563
Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:21:04 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=186666#comment-5664563You’re forgetting the fact that my question asked you to support your philosophical conclusion without resorting to objections to the opposite conclusion.

Make your case on substance, not personal prejudices.

When Copernicus presented his proofs for the celestial movements he didn’t have to do it on the basis of objections to the Ptolemaic system. Understand?

Similarly, if I was to make an apology for the truth claims of the Bible, I wouldn’t have to do it on the basis of debunking atheistic assumptions. Get it?

Sorry, major fail on a number of levels, Sauer. The Gospel accounts are not presented as fictitious accounts but as eye-witnessed and experienced events. The similarities in other traditional accounts, whether fictitious of historical are irrelevant.

Not to mention that you’re still giving me your subjective and personal opinions that this is a logical progression from certainty to doubt.

Cleombrotus on March 27, 2012 at 10:27 AM

“The Gospel accounts are not presented as fictitious accounts but as eye-witnessed and experienced events”
This nothing more than a rhetorical trick to boost the claims of Jesus Cleo. It’s what they HAVE to say to keep deceiving you.

]]>By: Cleombrotushttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/25/quotes-of-the-day-978/comment-page-8/#comment-5663979
Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:27:11 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=186666#comment-5663979Sorry, major fail on a number of levels, Sauer. The Gospel accounts are not presented as fictitious accounts but as eye-witnessed and experienced events. The similarities in other traditional accounts, whether fictitious of historical are irrelevant.

Not to mention that you’re still giving me your subjective and personal opinions that this is a logical progression from certainty to doubt.

No, give me the steps. You started out convinced that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Trace for me the logical steps refuting that supposition.

Cleombrotus on March 27, 2012 at 9:35 AM

Most of the aspects of the Jesus-figure can be found in the stories of older gods and god-men. What are the sources for the virgin birth, the wonders, the disciples, the teachings, and the death and resurrection motifs?

Was Jesus really unique and who are these deities that came before Jesus?

The problem for Jesus is that all these deities are MUCH older than him. You don’t have to be very bright to see where the authors of the Gospels got their “divine inspiration” when they created the Jewish version of the popular God-Man/ World-Saviour of Antiquity. The similarities to the Hellenic tales are striking and this goes back to what I’ve said in other forums here on HA.

Religions have been bastardizing and stealing from neighboring religions since time immemorial, from the earliest animist and pagan religions up through Mormonism’s melding of Islamic and Christian theology.

]]>By: Cleombrotushttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/25/quotes-of-the-day-978/comment-page-8/#comment-5663707
Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:35:30 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=186666#comment-5663707And if I cited the same disciplines as confirming my faith you would dismiss that as unconvincing.

No, give me the steps. You started out convinced that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Trace for me the logical steps refuting that supposition.

You asked for a logical progression from faith to non faith. What led me there was psychology, history, geology, paleontology, archeology, cosmology, biology… Knowledge is power, and the knowledge I’ve gathered since I was a wee lad is what informed me that these religions are just BS.

Don’t tell anyone joe, but I’m really a Satanist who’s just trying to garner another soul for my Lord. You see, I have my eyes set on a nice apartment overlooking the disembowling fields on the 7th level of hell.

;-)

SauerKraut537 on March 26, 2012 at 11:26 PM

The Satanists would not care for you; no faith in the Devil and all.
‘Course, Screwtape might have just popped that thought in your head.
He is quite hungry.

SauerKraut537 on March 27, 2012 at 12:57 AM
As regards Lucy… She’s still one of our ancestors, and you know what? Since the time they first found Lucy, they have found many more of the same species in the same area of Africa from the same geologic layers. All the other newer and older fossils (australapithecus aferensis, Rhodesiensis, Neanderthal, etc) of hominid life forms that they’ve found since all have multiple finds as well. To date, scientists have found hundreds of samples of hominid lifeforms across several hundred thousand to several million years old, but I think Lucy lost her oldest hominid distinction recently.

Lucy lost her title recently I believe. The question now is which one of these lead to Homo and which were dead end branches on the evolutionary tree. From what I understand chimps and apes are on one of those branches.

“Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ.” (Ephesians 6:5)

“Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don’t work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.” (Colassians 3:22)

“Slaves are to be submissive to their masters in everything, and to be well-pleasing, not talking back .” (Titus 2:9)

“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel. ” (1 Peter 2:18)

These deal with how slaves, indeed all of us, should conduct ourselves, with dignity and self worth. You missed Paul’s letter to Philemon asking/demanding that Philemon free his returning slave. You also forgot Paul stating that in God’s eyes there is no slave or free. You missed the “turn the other cheek” quote. Slaves were commonly slapped and the expression was meant to tell them to stand up for themselves. As I stated before Christianity spread through the Roman slave population like wild fire because slaves were being told that they had self worth and that they, like all, were children of God.

The Parable of the Sower was a mistake; that was not meant for your thread but for a different one. I cut and pasted the wrong response line in the box.

One incidence of drunkenness does not make a drunkard.
If the mathematical models are correct fermentation took much longer in preflood conditions. So while he thought he was drinking partially fermented wine he was drinking fully fermented wine.
Thinking that a Long Island Iced Tea was an iced tea with a shot of vodka I had two and got falling down drunk. Does that make me a drunkard.

You forgot the part about being repentant. Truly regretting your sins is necessary to accept Jesus into your heart. I have found truly regretting something is the worst punishment I have ever suffered.

I’m out, I’m not getting into the proof of evolution now. Rest assured, you need to study some more and quit getting your material from Polonium Halo geologists and Discovery Institute websites.

]]>By: Slowburnhttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/25/quotes-of-the-day-978/comment-page-8/#comment-5663227
Tue, 27 Mar 2012 05:22:44 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=186666#comment-5663227Lucy is the remains of an African ape found in Africa. The drawing used to show her as an ancestor of man do not match the Fossils.

Is that right? What did you learn?

SauerKraut537 on March 27, 2012 at 12:57 AM

If you date the rocks from the bones and then date the bones from the rocks you can “prove” any date you choose. The geological column only exists in textbooks and there are numerous examples of fossils found in the wrong layer for evolutionary theory.

Most amino acids are very deadly poisons, that all the amino acids have to of the same hand, and that there is not a single good mutation known to man.

Why would god need to flood the world to rid it of us pesky, immoral, wicked humans when he could just wiggle his nose Samantha Stephens style from Bewitched and poof the perfect world into existence with the perfect humans he so insanely desires?

SauerKraut537 on March 26, 2012 at 11:45 PM

Why not.

Slowburn on March 27, 2012 at 1:03 AM

And so an “all powerful” god found his inability to persuade his creations to goodness frustrating enough that he had to wipe out the entirety of mankind, excepting one drunkard named Noah (and his family) who presumably have to repopulate the entire world in doubletime so that we have as big of a population as we have today? Don’t we know that incest breeds birth defects, but I guess god gave Noah’s family special dispensation and skirted that reality of nature that we know to be true today.

If god wanted mindless slaves he could make them. He seems to want people who choose good over evil.

Seems like that’s his ultimate goal anyway (being mindless slaves singing his praises in heaven ad infinitum). Seems to want people to choose good over evil? According to Christian doctrine, a life long murderer can still get into heaven after living a life killing others and being otherwise immoral if he just accepts Jesus into his heart before he passes through the veil. So why don’t you go about murdering all you like and right before they stick the needles into your arm at your public execution call Jesus into your heart?

Why would god need to flood the world to rid it of us pesky, immoral, wicked humans when he could just wiggle his nose Samantha Stephens style from Bewitched and poof the perfect world into existence with the perfect humans he so insanely desires?

SauerKraut537 on March 26, 2012 at 11:45 PM

Why not. If god wanted mindless slaves he could make them. He seems to want people who choose good over evil.